The University finalized two memorandums of understanding with the Chinese University of Hong Kong last week, suggesting future collaboration.
The two memorandums - legal documents describing an agreement between parties in which they agree to work together on projects in the future - focused on graduate study abroad opportunities and a new Chinese language exchange program.
"Academic synergy has to be the primary focus of collaborations," said Vasuki Nesiah, director of International Affairs, which generally takes the lead in forming official agreements between Brown and foreign universities.
Brown has signed a total of four memorandums with CUHK over the past several years. A partnership has existed between the two schools since November 2006, when the first CUHK delegation arrived in Providence for discussion.
In June 2007, a group of Brown professors and administrators visited CUHK to pursue this relationship. Assistant Provost Shelley Stephenson, who has a background in Chinese film and literature, said she first got involved in the project then.
After many talks back and forth, the original two agreements were finalized. The first was an umbrella agreement covering the basics of the collaborations between the two universities, and the second went into more detail concerning undergraduate study abroad and educational opportunities.
The agreements signed last week offered more detailed information concerning study abroad and educational prospects for graduate students and a new foreign language opportunity for those studying Mandarin.
The Chinese language exchange program promises to be very beneficial to Brown students, especially since Mandarin classes have been in high demand over the last couple of years, Stephenson said.
Associate Professor of History Kerry Smith was in contact with Professor Gladys Tang, chair of the department for Linguistic and Modern Languages at CUHK, Smith told The Herald in an e-mail. The two discussed bringing graduates of the department's new master's program to teach in Brown's Department of East Asian Studies.
"Students enrolled in Mandarin language courses will benefit both from exposure to a highly motivated native speaking instructor and from the increased programmatic capacity a new teacher will represent," Smith wrote.
Smith added that, due to the increased interest in Mandarin, the Chinese program at Brown is understaffed.
In addition, Brown's staff will be given the chance to learn new methods and instructional frameworks from the visiting instructors "through team-teaching and departmental forums, and ongoing discussions with our counterparts at CUHK," he wrote.
According to Stephenson, Brown is hoping to set up other programs with CUHK in the future. These may include a faculty exchange program and a summer study abroad program. Students from Brown and CUHK would spend three to four weeks in Providence studying a particular field of interest. The same group would then go to CUHK and study the same material, Stephenson said.
The relationship between Brown and CUHK was made possible partly because the universities have a common donor, according to Stephenson. This donor - a Brown alum's family - has had good experiences at both universities and would like to see them collaborate, she said.
Faculty members were also supportive of this collaboration, she said, especially of pursuing a graduate student exchange program.
In the future, Brown will continue to pursue relationships with foreign universities to benefit both students and professors as it did with CUHK, Stephenson said.
